TRANSCRIBED FROM THE DERMOTT NEWS JANUARY 24, 1918 P. 4
So far we have had nothing to do except sleep, eat and try out our French. We have a good room at a hotel here and as my roommate said the other morning as we were eating breakfast in bed at about 10:30, General Sherman must have been ignorant of such a possibility. No one knows how long we will have to wait here, but as I figure that later on we will have plenty of real war, it seems foolish not to be as comfortable as we can as long as we can.
We have seen nearly all there is to see in this town so I am getting anxious to move along so that I can get some mail. I suppose we will get no mail until we are settled somewhere.
The eating here is very good except for war bread (something like rye bread) everything in that line is good. There are a lot of so called Patissenes here and they are fine places to buy cakes, chocolate (of the hot variety) and wines. The cakes are about the best I ever ate, as is also the hot chocolate. Water is rare and expensive so we have been drinking cider, beer and champagne, all of which are quite cheap. I have got to know by sight several waitresses and it is lots of fun thinking up things to ask them in French. Often French people at the same table are willing to talk to us and I find it much easier to talk to strangers in French than it would be in English. It still seems funny to me that people actually use the curious sounds I once learned in college to convey ideas to each other. I often run along with my French quite smoothly for a while only to butt into a brick wall all of a sudden. My roommate got off a good one the other night when he inserted right into the middle of his French “feefty—feefty,” as one says in America! Most of the people here know less English than I know French so it is a good place to practice. I have learned a lot of French words, but my grammar seems to get worse rather than better. I ‘lay aim” every day to study some but though I have nothing at all to do I never seem to find time for anything.
There are lots of Americans here, of course, and here at the officers’ club one sees a great many of them. I haven’t met anybody yet that I knew before I got into the army. I have been keeping an eye out for Douglas Wells and Chisa-Hauce, who I hear has a commission in the medical corps.
With Christmas less than a week off it seems very strange to be so far from home and native land. So far it hasn’t been as cold as I feared it would be. Yesterday we had some snow and had a great time asking a waitress if they often had enough snow here for sleighing. From her answer I gathered, No.
The army still seems to agree with me. I weighed 143 today which is more than I have weighed since I got over the typhoid in 1908.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Lieut. James Llewellyn Crenshaw to his sister Mrs. S. Burleigh. He was serving in France with the Gas Defense Department of the U. S. National Army. It is said that he was the first from Dermott to be sent to France. He was born in 1887 and died in 1950. He is buried in the Dermott City Cemetery in Dermott, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE
So far we have had nothing to do except sleep, eat and try out our French. We have a good room at a hotel here and as my roommate said the other morning as we were eating breakfast in bed at about 10:30, General Sherman must have been ignorant of such a possibility. No one knows how long we will have to wait here, but as I figure that later on we will have plenty of real war, it seems foolish not to be as comfortable as we can as long as we can.
We have seen nearly all there is to see in this town so I am getting anxious to move along so that I can get some mail. I suppose we will get no mail until we are settled somewhere.
The eating here is very good except for war bread (something like rye bread) everything in that line is good. There are a lot of so called Patissenes here and they are fine places to buy cakes, chocolate (of the hot variety) and wines. The cakes are about the best I ever ate, as is also the hot chocolate. Water is rare and expensive so we have been drinking cider, beer and champagne, all of which are quite cheap. I have got to know by sight several waitresses and it is lots of fun thinking up things to ask them in French. Often French people at the same table are willing to talk to us and I find it much easier to talk to strangers in French than it would be in English. It still seems funny to me that people actually use the curious sounds I once learned in college to convey ideas to each other. I often run along with my French quite smoothly for a while only to butt into a brick wall all of a sudden. My roommate got off a good one the other night when he inserted right into the middle of his French “feefty—feefty,” as one says in America! Most of the people here know less English than I know French so it is a good place to practice. I have learned a lot of French words, but my grammar seems to get worse rather than better. I ‘lay aim” every day to study some but though I have nothing at all to do I never seem to find time for anything.
There are lots of Americans here, of course, and here at the officers’ club one sees a great many of them. I haven’t met anybody yet that I knew before I got into the army. I have been keeping an eye out for Douglas Wells and Chisa-Hauce, who I hear has a commission in the medical corps.
With Christmas less than a week off it seems very strange to be so far from home and native land. So far it hasn’t been as cold as I feared it would be. Yesterday we had some snow and had a great time asking a waitress if they often had enough snow here for sleighing. From her answer I gathered, No.
The army still seems to agree with me. I weighed 143 today which is more than I have weighed since I got over the typhoid in 1908.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Lieut. James Llewellyn Crenshaw to his sister Mrs. S. Burleigh. He was serving in France with the Gas Defense Department of the U. S. National Army. It is said that he was the first from Dermott to be sent to France. He was born in 1887 and died in 1950. He is buried in the Dermott City Cemetery in Dermott, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE